Fred Spaulding

My work is a visual and physical response to sprawling urban networks of communication, transportation, and construction. Visual icons referencing these networks such as the remote control, freeway interchange, and building façade are printed, collaged, or cast into the work. Interventions of the hand in painted glaze, carved sand castings, or wheel formed clay individualize the assemblage and mark it as a decidedly subjective reaction. The overall art making practice generates small objects that are shown individually or combined in large bundles. The process is open ended, and adaptive evoking the energy, activity, and physicality of contemporary life. Bands of metal and plastic seek to contain constructed accumulations forming another networked layer of visual information. More recently, a collection of cast iron loop forms combine spontaneous linear forms with impressions of gas containers, electric outlets, and cell phones. The collections ultimately are disbanded and reformed in new shapes and locations, components are reworked, new parts are added and elements are removed to go into the collections of others.